Seven Years
by Airplane
Summary: For Zelda, they were a long seven years.
1. Chapter 1

**AN:** This is a response to a thirty theme challenge: related stories about Zelda during the seven years that Link slept. They will not be posted in chronological order.

**1. Winter**

Zelda bit down a shiver and stopped herself from pulling her cloak more tightly about her shoulders. Sheikah don't shiver, Impa said. Sheikah never show weakness, Impa said. She had to embrace the cold into her being, overcome it her Hylian frailties. Once she did that, she would be a shadow and the wind would pass through her without touching her skin or bones.

Impa's words rolled through her head with the howl of wind, but she still felt cold. More than that, she still wished for warmth. A pivotal step to becoming a true Sheikah (one that Zelda knew in her heart would hold her back from ever truly completing her training) was acceptance of all things.

Some things Zelda simply would not accept.

The wind from the Zora domain once felt warm, like sunshine on her face, smelling of damp rock. Just a month ago she'd felt that warm breath of summer. But now it was replaced by this: a dry, bitter wind that scraped against every inch of exposed skin. In the wind she imagined she could hear cries, moans, pleading against an icy suffering.

In the face of all the tragedies she'd witnessed, how did Impa expect her not to long for how things were? How could Impa expect her to cast away her heart when her people were suffering?

Acceptance was not an option. It never really had been.

She'd usually slip into the water and swim unseen past the small patrols of moblins. But this was too difficult now that a thin layer of ice crackled across the surface of the river, breaking and shifting in the current. Snow fell in loose, fat flakes, making hand holds treacherous as she climbed up the walls of the gorge and waited for the patrols to pass below or as she clung to the bank of the river, her feet braced just above the icy water, her numb fingers the only visible part of her as they passed above.

The ice and snow was unseasonable. The river only froze like this in short bursts in the dead of winter when snow covered the rest of Hyrule as well. It made no sense for this to happen in June. It made no sense for the Zora to suddenly cut all contact. Zelda could see Impa's concern building these past few days as the silence stretched into something they could almost grab onto and shake in frustration (not that Sheikah did that.) Today, Zelda could no longer bare the silence and set out to get answers. Something awful must have happened. Some terrible magic lay thick like a mist over the water. She could almost see it if she focused hard enough, but such investigations were difficult given how she hung from a the steep edge of an embankment and her fingers were starting to slip and her boots were getting wet.

It did not escape her attention that the current did not run as strongly as it once did. Like there was less water than usual. She couldn't fathom what could cause that.

It took far longer than usual to reach the Zora's domain, and longer than she would have liked given that Impa would shortly discover her absence.

All such worries were wiped from her mind when she reached the Zora's domain. The domain was a solid mass of ice, every pool, every wall, every floor. The cave felt wide in the brightness reflected off the ice, and it felt close with all the walls a solid, opaque foot thicker than she remembered The two sensations warred within her, a sense of vertigo creeping up her spine aided by a shimmer that kept everything just out of focus. It was quiet as a tomb-only the creak of settling ice sheets and the echo of the wind. The cavern swallowed up all sound and only let it echo in its belly far away. It was so cold she thought her lungs had frozen, she thought she had died of cold and stillness and shock.

She'd known something was wrong. But not this. Never this.

Where were all the Zora? Where were they hiding or where were their bodies? Her mind raced with scenarios of where they could have fled: the Lost Woods, the Zora's Fountain. Maybe they'd barricaded some of the tunnels. Her mind raced with horrible images of their forms frozen and set like statues around the throne room, of their slaughtered bodies stacked in a pile, of snow drifts splattered with dark blood. Maybe-improbably-they'd made it to Lake Hylia before the ice set, before the whole of the domain was sealed in glittering ice. She hadn't been there recently and if they were in hiding then intelligence wouldn't have reached her yet.

And what of the water? How long until the lake levels lowered? How long until people and crops died of thirst? Who in their right mind would sever their own source of drinking water?

She slipped across the ice to begin her search, trying to hold onto her dignity as Sheikah didn't throw their windmilling arms out and Sheikah didn't slip and fall on their asses. Or maybe Impa would phrase that lesson differently. Maybe Zelda was spending too much time spying on the carpenters and picking up new vocabulary words.

She looked down to check her footing and caught sight of the ice beneath her feet, a patch free from the fine layer of frost and snow that covered the rest of the chamber. Blinking, she came to a halt with as little skidding as she could manage. She'd thought she was cold before, but now her blood froze with dread.

She'd seen something beneath the ice.

She swallowed and fortified herself-Sheikah do not show fear-then she lowered herself to one knee and brushed the snow aside.

Maybe she was more Sheikah than she thought, as years of training snapped into place and she successfully held back a gasp and a scream, a prayer and a curse.


	2. Chapter 2

**2. Death**

Kakariko had a single bakery. Like most businesses, it was run by refugees from Castle Town, but unlike most businesses, their sales had picked up since they came to the village. (Although they'd never admit in polite company that they had benefited from the destruction.)

The only other baker in town was Mrs. Hale, who made bread as a hobby and never in large quantities. Her gracious gifts of single loaves always came with a guilt trip and some sort of subtle catch. "Oh Sheik dear, I was thinking of you and your aunt the other day and I made you this pumpernickle. I know how much you like it, so I thought I'd show you some kindness before I set these old bones to work repairing my fence. That fence looks like a lot of work, doesn't it. It's a right mess. Oh, and it looks like it's going to rain. At least I had a rest while I made this bread for you." And then Zelda would have to repair a fence.

There was also a Goron up the mountain who made and sold cupcakes. He tried to hook the villagers into buying them, but he couldn't wrap his head around the fact that humans didn't like mud and pebbles mixed with their chocolate, eggs, and flour, and he couldn't understand why business was so slow. Zelda attempted to explain it to him a few times, but only received a blank look from the Goron and an eyeroll from Impa. "Leave it, Sheik. I'm sure you have more pressing matters to worry about."

While in Castle Town, the bakery was a small shop, off the main boulevard, hemmed in by competition. But after the first set of fires that took out the western quarter, a moblin raid on a string of refugees, and the retirement of the badly shaken, venerable old baker, The Bakers now held a thriving monopoly in Kakariko.

Add to it that these days everyone needed news in Kakariko even more desperately than they had needed daily gossip in Castle Town. The bakery was therefore guaranteed a daily visit from at least one representative from every household.

The Bakers were a married couple, referred to as The Baker's Husband and The Baker's Wife. They had a son called The Baker's Son. Even though no one ever specified, Zelda (and everyone else in town) understood that "The Baker" in The Baker's Son's name referred to The Baker's Wife.

The Baker's Son's eyes would narrow whenever he set eyes on Sheik. He refused to speak to Sheik any more than absolutely necessary. One of his nostrils would flare in disgust. Or maybe, Zelda considered, it was that one side of his lip would raise in a sneer and that pushed his one nostril up in an unattractive way.

She'd once mentioned (in only slightly threatening tones) that The Baker's Son's face might freeze that way and he'd never find a girlfriend (a point of regular distress for The Baker's Son.) But he had interpreted this as Sheik hitting on him and his hostilities and defensiveness had tripled.

The Baker's Wife and The Baker's Husband didn't care for Sheik either. Although not openly hostile (probably a function of their customer service rather than their neighborliness) they were cold and brusk.

Zelda tried to make her trips to the bakery quickly and with as little interaction as possible. She stayed silent and melted into the background while she waited, preferring to listen to the gossip than remind anyone she was there and have to suffer through looks of distrust and discomfort. The Baker's Wife was perfectly happy to pretend Sheik wasn't there as she prepared Impa's order and carried on her regular business.

"They found him at his kitchen table," The Baker's Wife said, her voice hushed and excited. "Dead as a doornail. His soup still in front of him, all coagulated."

Mrs. Finley sucked in a breath. Her eyes wide and excited despite how the rest of her face conveyed horror. She leaned further across the counter in interest. "Who found him?"

"That boy, Jim. Only a matter of time really before he stumbled on a body, hanging around that graveyard all the time. As if he hasn't seen enough death."

"Children have strange coping mechanisms."

The Baker's Wife scoffed. "Well, his coping mechanism means that now he's even more traumatized. Morbid business. Someone should really put a stop to it. His mother, bless her heart, should really take him in hand."

Jim had survived the August Raid of Castle Town. His father died in the raid and his mother was disfigured, a tangle of scars crossing her face and hands. The boy didn't speak for four months afterwards. Most of the town felt discomforted when he surrounded himself with death, playing at grave digging, but Sheik felt grateful that the old gravedigger's gruff friendship had finally drawn the boy out of his shell. It made some logical sense in a way. Although it could never alleviate the grief, the active search for information could make death far less frightening.

Impa had also approved. She'd hummed to herself and wondered aloud if the boy would be suitable for Sheikah training, then surreptitiously thrown an acorn at him to see if he would dodge. He hadn't, and Impa had sighed in disappointment and never spoken of it again.

"And they think it was natural causes?"

"Of course. He was an old man. No foul play. No monsters."

Mrs. Finley nodded in relief. Zelda could feel her own shoulders relax, even when she hadn't realized they'd tightened. Deaths in Kakariko could cause panic, fear that Ganondorf was tightening his grip, hunting them down. For Zelda it was fear that Impa's protective spells had broken.

"So I guess the question now," Mrs. Finley said with an ironic twist to her sweet smile, "is who's going to bury the gravedigger."

Zelda froze, a ringing in her ears as her brain took a moment to process. "Dampe died?"

The women turned to look at her and she realized a moment too late that she'd spoken aloud. She'd have to work on that. Imposed silence for two days. After she got to the bottom of this, of course.

The Baker's Wife frowned, only just remembering Sheik's presence. "Yes."

Zelda blinked, a thousand questions rising to her tongue where she let them simmer, unwilling to show any more emotion in front of The Baker's Wife, aware that her questions would receive no answers here.

The Baker's Husband appeared from the back a moment later to save her from more awkwardness. With a frown and a stony silence, he handed over Impa's order and Zelda fled the shop.

* * *

She didn't have a chance to go to the graveyard until after the funeral. From what she gathered, it wasn't much of a funeral, more about burying the body and sealing off his tomb.

Impa purposefully kept her busy from the moment she stepped into the house and said, "I'm going to the graveyard. Dampe died."

Impa's muscles tensed so subtly that only Zelda ever would have noticed. "What killed him?"

"From the way the villagers are talking: his poor cooking skills."

Impa relaxed. "He was an old man."

Zelda tossed the bread onto the table. "Yes. I'm going to the graveyard. I'll be back before dinner."

"Why?" Something sharp in Impa's voice halted Zelda in her tracks.

"To pay my respects," she lied.

"I didn't know you two were close."

"We're not." Sheik wasn't close to anyone.

The gravedigger was rough, gnarled, and crude, but Zelda had appreciated that he was rough, gnarled, and crude to everyone and not just the mysterious Sheikah boy. They weren't friends.

But they were rare acomplaces.

Now that their partnership had ended, Zelda needed to make different arrangements.

Impa's eyes narrowed. "I told you not to trust the gravedigger."

"I didn't. But he wasn't a bad man. You're sounding like the villagers."

"I don't distrust him because I fear the unknown. I distrust him because he would sell you out in an instant."

True, the gravedigger did have a glint in his eye like he was searching for secrets, searching for power. There was a twist to his mouth like he would stab you when your back was turned. But that gnawing paranoia was something Zelda dealt with every day with every person and she'd always taken appropriate precautions. Her current situation was already making her feel foolish enough for taking what little assistance she had.

"He was not an agent of Ganondorf."

"He never had any information worth sharing."

Zelda stayed silent, unwilling to concede this argument. Impa and Sheik had many such conversations where they would stop in the middle and stare at each other for long stretches. People gave them odd looks when they did it in public.

"I need you to go up the mountain," Impa said. "I have a package for Darunia."

Zelda's insides screamed in protest, but she kept her face still. Arguing would only arouse suspicion. Obviously, Impa had had no intention of sending her up the mountain five minutes previously, but the Sheikah had a sixth sense about when Zelda was Up To Something (which actually wasn't very hard because Zelda was always Up To Something.)

"Yes, Impa."

Impa nodded and grabbed a thin box from her desk, wrapped in twine and brown paper, handing it to Zelda and sending her on her way.

* * *

She had to wait a whole week after she got back for Impa to assume that Zelda had forgotten about whatever sneaking about she had planned. A whole week before Impa felt assured enough to leave for the night on some dangerous/secret mission on which Zelda was not invited.

Zelda spent the evening in the graveyard breaking into Dampe's tomb.

The carpenters who had buried him did it a bit too well if you asked Zelda. She was used to shifting headstones that fell over and scooted easily because Dampe's strength had petered out over time and left him with little interest in securing old tombs that no one ever visited. She had to return home and grab a couple of power bracelets from a loose floorboard under her bed, and then use a blast of magic on top of her shoving to get the tombstone to move. Sweating and panting, with her shoulder braced against Dampe's epitaph, she wondered if, while she was up on Death Mountain, Impa had asked the carpenters to set the stone particularly well. Maybe with a fake story about shadow demon curses.

The moon was at its highest when Zelda finally dropped into the tomb, landing neatly next to Dampe's stone coffin. She'd seen it many times before, but the knowledge that it was now occupied made her skin prickle. This was no longer a place she should visit. She would have to find a new hiding place. It was only polite.

She took two steps into the dark labyrinth, not even leaving the main room and the light of the moon, before a cackle rolled through, echoing and reverberating so she couldn't pinpoint its source. She had a knife in each hand before the mist even started to form, and she watched the specter take shape, forming the shimmering ghost of the gravedigger.

"Dampe," she said, not lowering her guard, but feeling slightly more at ease.

"Sheikah boy," Dampe said. His laugh rasped again and even though she saw his mouth move and his chest contract with his laugh, she felt that the sound could come from anywhere.

"You know why I'm here. Let me take my hookshot and I'll leave you in peace."

Dampe floated for a moment before her, his lower jaw shifting back and forth, emphasizing his overbite and bad teeth as he thought. "No. I don't think so."

Zelda stared at him the way she stared at everyone, a habit formed from years of people growing uncomfortable and giving into her demands. Unsurprisingly, it didn't work on the ghost.

"You've been using my graveyard to hide all sorts of treasures. All kinds of mysteries. I held up my end of the bargain. Never told your aunt. Not a peep."

"For that I am grateful. But now I need to find another hiding place."

"No, Sheikah. I kept your secrets. Now I'm keeping your treasure."

Zelda's shoulders lowered, settling into an attack posture. "I will take back what's mine."

"Yours," Dampe scoffed, swinging his newly acquired lantern. "Highly doubt it's yours. You stole it, then I stole it from you. Let you keep using it for a while, but now it's finders keepers."

"What do you need with a hookshot?"

"What do you need with it?" Dampe countered, then laughed again.

Zelda fumed. She could feel her red eyes glowing as her temper flared. Without the hookshot she couldn't get back into the Forest Temple. She couldn't cross the gorge into the desert. She couldn't reach her favorite vantage points on the path up Death Mountain or climb to the top of the Spirit Temple. All the places Impa didn't want her visiting.

She'd have to find other means. Or get her hookshot back.

"Sheikah, Sheikah, keeping secrets," Dampe sang. "There's a price for your deception. There's a price for your sneaking. One day all that sneaking ends."

"It's important. It's for the benefit of all Hyrule."

"What do I care about Hyrule?"

Zelda held in her reaction, her surprise only conveyed by the slightest of hesitations before she said, "Then you are heartless."

Dampe pounded a fist against his chest. "It's true."

"If necessary, I'll take it by force. I've ended poes before. You're no different."

"Ah, you can try. You'll have to catch me first." He spun in midair, a thousand times more spry than he was alive. "You kept it here to keep it safe. There's no safer place in all the caverns in all the earth, in any of the dark, haunted places. Even you can't get it now."

Zelda considered for just a moment that he might have a point. Maybe she should leave it here for safekeeping. The hero could come claim it himself when he revived.

She brushed away the thought with a single wave of determination. She would get it back, and she would keep fighting. The challenge only made it more rewarding, only gave her more experience. Maybe if it was difficult enough, she'd continue to keep it here. She'd continue her agreement with Dampe, and jump through whatever hoops he could throw at her to hold onto what was hers.

Dampe spoke. "How about a game, Sheikah? If you can keep pace, you can have it." Then he spun down the corridor, into the labyrinth, a wheezing laugh and a sprinting Sheikah in his wake.


	3. Chapter 3

**3. Night Sky**

Malon sat in the horse pasture under a spray of stars, without a single light from the ranch, and without the glow of lights missing on the horizon from where Castle Town once shone. Against the blackness she was almost invisible, which was probably her intention, but her singing negated her efforts.

Besides, Sheik could see in the dark.

Malon's spine stiffened, her song cut off, and she twisted, her hair spinning around to whip her in the face. She couldn't see as well in the dark, and she blinked a few times before her shoulders slumped in relief.

"Oh, it's just you. Don't sneak up on me like that."

Zelda didn't apologize, more concerned with how Malon had sensed her presence from ten paces away. Surely Malon hadn't heard her. Smelled her maybe? Or maybe she'd felt some change in the flow of the wind. Knowing Malon, some sort of pill bug or beetle or gofer had warned her.

Zelda bit back her questions and approached, dropping to a crouch more than an arm's length away. Malon had a tendency to lunge at her, trying to catch Sheik by surprise in some kind of terrifying game that Malon greatly enjoyed. A few times her fingers had brushed the edge of Sheik's face wrappings. Once Malon had pinned Sheik to the side of a barn to try to kiss him despite the face wrappings.

After the incident Zelda quickly adjusted her methods.

Malon was completely unembarrassed about the whole thing, and completely undaunted by the fact that she'd wake up an hour later, face to the ground, with an aching hangover from a deku nut.

But it kept Zelda on her toes. It kept her mindful that she couldn't make friends. She couldn't trust anyone. She couldn't let her guard down.

Malon smiled an unhappy, ironic smile.

"I guess you heard then. You come to check on me? That's sweet."

Zelda waited in silence. Malon would talk enough for both of them. She never had to be prompted for information.

"I'm fine," she said. "See? Not hurt. No big battle or anything to report. A few knights rode in, read off the decree, and glared until my dad packed up and left. All very...civil."

Zelda didn't scoff exactly, but Malon picked up on her disbelief anyway.

"Okay, yeah. Ingo's never been very civil, but it's all talk. Gloating and crowing like one of the roosters." She did an impression that was supposed to be Ingo...dancing? Hard to tell, but Malon laughed as if it was terribly funny.

The laugh trailed off and Malon turned to look into Zelda's red eyes. "He wouldn't hurt me."

A flick of her wrist and a throwing knife landed by Malon's hand, blade embedded in the dirt. Zelda spoke for the first time. "You know how to use that?"

Malon pulled it from the ground and inspected it as well as she could in the dark, holding it with only the pads of her fingers. Zelda took this as a firm "No."

"Don't you need this?" Malon asked, ready to hand it back.

"I have more."

Her interest peaked with this small bit of information about Sheik's life. "How many more?"

"Focus, Malon."

Malon sighed. "Right. Stabbing. Got it."

"Aim for the eyes. Or the throat."

Malon looked disgusted, then dropped the knife into one of the deep pockets on her dress. "I don't need it. It's really not that bad."

"Ganondorf took your home and livelihood from you to give to one of his pawns. He separated you from your father. He's a usurper."

It was Malon's turn to be silent, staring at Sheik until Zelda realized the level of venom she'd injected into that statement. Malon waited, with a knowing look until Zelda realized she was talking more about herself than Malon.

She could have cursed herself in embarrassment and shame.

"You know," Malon said slowly, her voice quiet so it wouldn't escape into the sky, so no one else would ever hear her. "I did the books last night. They balanced for the first time in ten years."

Zelda stayed silent.

"My dad's my dad, but he's dumb as a post. He wasn't even good with the animals, except the cuccos, and he overindulged them. Let 'em run wild and get too fat."

"Ingo is a servant of Ganondorf. He is in his debt, and debts to the King of Thieves are never repaid. He will take and he will take and he will take. Your horses will serve his army. Your cows will feed his troops."

"Good grief, Sheik," she hissed. "Don't you think I know that."

Zelda raised an eyebrow, which Malon couldn't see.

"Ugg!" Her fingers bit into the ground at her sides and tore at the grass. "Well, what am I supposed to do about it?"

"You can fight."

"No. You can fight. I'm not a revolutionary. We've been over this. I'm not turning the ranch into headquarters for your rebellion. I've gotta keep me and mine safe."

"You'll accept this travesty."

"I have to," she spat. "Me all by my lonesome declare war on Ganondorf? Are you crazy? He'd kill me with one lightning bolt if he decided not to torture me first."

"You wouldn't be alone. I would be by your side."

"Oh. Well. You and me against Ganondorf. We'll ride at dawn!"

"Your sarcasm is unhelpful."

"You're unhelpful. Look at the world around you. We've lost, Sheik. Now we have to make the most of it. We have to survive. We have to make lives for ourselves, and I think we can do it. I'd rather make something of the here and now than fight and die to hang onto the past."

"I aim for the future, not the past."

Malon shook her head, that sad smile back in place. "You're an idiot." She said this like it was an endearing quality.

She took Sheik's silence as assent and let the topic drop, let the moment of tension pass. They'd had similar conversations for years. Neither of them ever broke ground and neither of them expected to do so.

"I'm not laming a horse just to keep it from Ganondorf."

"I'd never expect that of you."

"You deal in your way. I deal in mine."

"Of course."

Malon sighed. "My dad's in Kakariko?"

"Yes."

"How drunk is he?"

Zelda considered lying, but Malon already knew the answer. "Very."

"Figures. He left some stuff here. He's a bad packer. If I gave you a bundle, could you take it to him?"

Zelda nodded. "I'll return in two nights."

"That works."

Zelda stood and turned to leave, then she paused. "If all was right with the world, Lon Lon would be yours. It would not belong to Ingo or your father. You would do what you wished, and never be forced to surrender your livestock or fear the consequences. That's the future I see."

Malon sniffed a little laugh, but the fact that she didn't make a lunge for Sheik's ankles before he disappeared into the shadows meant she was considering the possibility.


	4. Chapter 4

**4. Flowers**

The note Impa left on the kitchen table for her eleven-year-old ward held no salutation. "I'm needed at Lake Hylia for the next three days. While I'm away you need to

"1. Clean the gutters. Do not fall off the roof.

"2. Homework. I will check it when I get back, so it had better be done.

"3. Read the Treastie on the Book of Morda

"4. Practice your harp. Every day I'm gone. For a full hour."

Zelda made a face and decided to pretend this item wasn't on the list. Item 4 was invisible and the list jumped straight from Item 3 to item 5. Silly Impa and the sudden, inexplicable lapse in her counting skills.

"5. Practice your archery.

"6. Stay out of trouble. This includes not being captured by enemy forces, not being killed or nearly killed by a poe, not getting lost out on the field, not provoking Mr. Stewart or his cuccos, and not getting too friendly with the neighbors. No head injuries, knife wounds, or burns. These are just examples. Any creative interpretations or attempts to be smart will not be tolerated.

"-Impa

"P.S. I'm serious about the harp, Sheik. You sound like a dying cat."

Zelda rolled her eyes.

Stupid harp.

Stupid, boring analysis of the Book of Morda.

At least practicing her archery was included with all the terribleness. Funny how unchorelike it sounded mixed in with orders to do her homework and clean the gutters. It was much better than the push ups and weight lifting and miles and miles of running that Impa usually assigned.

Zelda wondered if Impa had forgotten to add the usual endurance training to the note. And checked the back of the page just to see if it was there. Then she wondered if this was a test to see if she would do all the endurance training anyway. She groaned internally when she realized that that was exactly it, and then she groaned out loud when she realized that she would do them.

No one was around to hear her groan, so it was okay. Maybe she'd spend the next three days groaning and whining and sighing just because she could. Princesses didn't do such things, and—much to her annoyance—neither did Sheikah.

She was distracted from the prospect of being overdramatic by the prospect of bettering her archery. That was an exciting, and being allowed to practice unsupervised sounded thrilling. She imagined herself as the most amazing archer in all Hyrule, defending Kakariko from a horde of enemies, arrow after arrow. Retaking Castle Town at the head of an army. Embedding a single shot in Ganondorf's heart. A single display of her abilities in front of the villagers and all the cruel nicknames they had for Sheik would die on their lips, only to be whispered in the dead of night when they were locked safe in their homes.

Maybe if she wowed Impa with her superior skills, she could get away with not doing well with her harp...not that she remembered harp practice being on the list.

So Zelda made herself lunch and then climbed out the second floor window to clean fallen, rotten leaves out of the gutter. She got about halfway through before she got too impatient and abandoned the chore for later. She really ought to do some homework before she left, but...well, that could be done after the sun set and archery practice could not, so it made sense for her to leave now. Her decision thus rationalized, She wiped her hands on her pants, grabbed her quiver and her bow, and slipped out of the village.

Impa always took her to the front of the Shadow Temple to practice her martial arts and magic and such. It was secluded, and there was room to move around, and they were Sheikah so doing things in or around the temple went without saying. Impa would live in front of the Shadow Temple except for the fact that she'd get wet when it rained. Zelda guessed that Impa would make her do her math homework and her reading in front of the Shadow Temple, except that it hadn't occurred to her that Zelda wasn't doing this already.

Suddenly free of the gloomy, haunted courtyard that always smelled sickly sweet, where she could always hear the whispers of the dead, Zelda headed up the mountain towards the summit of the volcano. With a sigh that no one heard, she took the path at a jog to get the endurance practice out of the way.

She'd gotten rather good at hitting the stationary targets in front of the Shadow temple. And the long distance stationary targets set in the graveyard that she would hit by standing on a box so she could shoot over the fence that ran around the Shadow Temple courtyard didn't give her much trouble either. But her shots took a while to prepare, usually four deep breaths along the arrow that brushed her cheek, usually a full Sheikah mantra. I am the wind and I fly true. I am the shadow, cutting through the air on the edge of a blade. I am secrets and honor and my targets fall sure as the setting of the sun.

She needed to get faster. And she figured the best way to do that was to move on to moving targets. She wouldn't be allowed to take her time. And she was definitely ready for a more difficult challenge. Definitely.

And what was a better moving target than a fire keese? Nothing! It was perfect!

She sunk to the ground on the main island in the crater, collapsing in an undignified pile of thin limbs and sheikah clothes and sweat, again taking advantage of being unsupervised. The climb up the mountain was always farther than she expected. It was always hotter in the crater than she remembered. She indulged in another groan and opened her eyes, looking around for keese. There were four of them, spread about the crater as if giving each other space, flapping about over the lava. They hadn't noticed her and probably wouldn't.

They looked very far away.

She frowned at them, then picked up her bow from where she'd dropped it in the dirt and stood up, aiming at the closest monster, which wasn't all that close at all. With every stroke of its wings, it rose a few inches then fell, bobbing in the air, circling back and forth and around. The heat haze from the lava made its silhouette shimmer. The flicker of fire on its wings made its shape change and dance and stutter.

She squinted and pulled back an arrow, watching the keese for a long moment, then offering a swift prayer to the goddesses and letting her arrow fly. She missed, which was not terribly surprising. Impa kept telling her not to rely on luck, but it was a knee jerk reaction that was hard to shove away.

Her arrow burned away in the lava below, and Zelda considered that maybe this wasn't the best idea. She'd have to make more arrows.

She pulled back for another shot, and watched the keese flicker. She watched for any pattern to its movements, for any way to predict its trajectory. She said her mantra as she watched, then let her arrow fly, hitting the monster's tail and sending it into a frenzied spiral in which it dropped a few feet before righting itself. It started a new, wobbly circuit, slightly shaken, but not enough to look around and come after her.

She grinned and tried again. And on her fourth try, she got it, straight through the heart to careen into the lava.

Filled with pride, she turned, ready to take down one of the others.

But now where there should have been three kesse, there were six. Puzzling. They must be roosting somewhere.

She got her second keese on the fourth try again, then her third on the second, which she took to mean she had drastically improved. Because she was amazing. Impa would be impressed.

But now there were nine, no, ten keese. She paused and lowered her bow, watching them. Where were they were coming from? Ten was too many. She'd never seen them in such numbers, even though given the size of the crater, they didn't look like all that many and ten wasn't even that big a number.

Despite the sweltering heat, something cold crept down her spine and into her belly.

Something was wrong.

With a few minutes of observation that stretched like the heat settling through her skin, and with the appearance of two more kesse, she caught one coming out of the temple, flapping and swerving and veering off to the left. A moment later, another appeared also out of the mouth of the temple. This one rose up to circle just in front of the entrance at a decent height.

They were massing in the temple? How many were in there?

Curiosity had always been one of her greatest vices, but whenever Impa told her so, Zelda always shrugged it off as one of those things that didn't really matter but caretakers always said anyway. Like eating her vegetables, and enunciating the ends of words, and not leaving her knives lying around.

Dark gray clouds rolled overhead, angry and threatening, and practically bursting with rain. She glanced up, then shouldered her bow and headed towards the temple.

Technically speaking, she wasn't supposed to enter the temples. She'd been in the first few rooms of the Shadow Temple, but Impa was with her. She'd been in the Temple of Time, but she knew that didn't really count. She liked to bring it up anyway, just so she could claim some small amount of bragging rights and importance. Impa would roll her eyes and say something like, "If you say so," and Zelda would nod in defiance.

So entering the Fire Temple for the first time thrilled her with scandalous adventure.

A long, dark flight of stairs led down into the depths of the volcano, lit only with flickering torches that shed enough light to mark the edges of the wall to either side, but not illuminate the stairwell. It took a few moments for her to realize that she took the steps slowly not so that she could place her feet, but because some force stronger than darkness made her cautious. The cloud of evil lay heavier in the air the further she descended, like a physical force weighing on her chest, making it harder to breathe. It wasn't just the heat that obstructed her breathing. She didn't notice at first that her ears strained for the faintest sound, trying to hear past the crackle of the torches and the warble of heat pressure against her inner ear. It took a moment for her to realize she had drawn her knife.

A kesse erupted out of the dark, so close that she could hear how the sound of its wings differed from the rustle of its fire, how they complemented each other like the crinkling of several kinds of paper at once. She ducked and it screamed, diving at her so fast and close that she could see the glow of its eyes, lit orange by its own fire, so close she could see its fangs, larger and more menacing than she'd ever seen before.

One twisting move, the turn of her body, a pivot on one foot, a swoop of her arm, and she sliced the beast open as it dove. Its scream changed texture then faltered, its fire sputtering then going out as it collapsed onto the stone a few steps above her.

She stared at its fallen form, her eyes in the darkness just as still and black as a moment before, but now somehow darker with the absence of the monster's flame, with the reminder that danger lurked closer than she had anticipated.

It surprised her that she had been so calm. Maybe all that training was working. Now it was kind of crumbling around her, but a moment before she had handled herself exceptionally well, if she did say so herself. But a fear was working into her throat and she only managed a brief, choked laugh. It was stupid to be afraid, it was just a single keese. She told herself to grow up and shoved the emotion away, and since it was tangled too tightly with her pride in herself, she had to push that away as well and missed out on the full feeling of it.

She rubbed the tender skin on the back of her knuckles where the kesse had singed her, and noted as she descended further that it was much easier to kill them with a knife than with arrows.

She met another kesse at the bottom of the stairs, and dispatched it as easily as the first. With her fear pushed away, she didn't even look at its fallen form this time, stepping over it to survey the entrance hall.

It was not as impressive a room as she would expect, all rough, brown stone and packed earth. A few simplistically carved columns and some torches were the only decoration. She'd imagined vividly painted frescoes and shining jewels set in the walls. She'd expected tile floors and majestic waterfalls of lava. The Temple of Time had all that beautiful stained glass and statues of the goddesses. Even the Shadow Temple had wall paintings and stone carvings of grotesque faces and elaborately constructed piles of bones.

At least the room was well lit. It had that going for it.

The main feature of the room was the kesse. A good dozen of them circled around the ceiling, sending shadows and light dancing across the floor. Given a moment's observation, she could make enough sense of their movements to tell they were thickest around an opening on the left leading to the next room. She unslung her bow and thinned the flock a bit. There was no way she could pass them without being noticed, and once one noticed her, they would all notice her. Even though her first two shots missed their mark, the kesse were so close together that the arrows struck ones at which she wasn't aiming.

She thought this was a good thing, then decided that it wasn't really.

With the flock thinned, she tapped into everything she'd learned about sneaking and slipped past the flock, into the next room, only to stop short.

The room was huge. The ceiling gaped above her, the highest heights disappearing into shadow. Islands of rock stood around the room, rising stubbornly out of the river of lava below, standing firm against the wear of time and heat. The lava bubbled and flowed, red and orange and white, hissing and popping, the surface shimmering and cracking. The noise was overpowering. The heat was overwhelming.

And, like a pillar of flaming smoke, like a writhing coil of a great serpent, a flock of kesse rose out of the lava in numbers that surpassed imagining.

They screamed in a million voices, each scream echoing a dozen time, scattering the tones into different pitches, fuzzier rhythms, making the scene even more nightmarish as she couldn't latch onto any one sound, any one kessee. They were a mass that rose and circled and fell, shifting like a flock of birds, the fire from one kessee blurring into the wings of another. The few that broke away flew blind and erratic, like debris thrown from a tornado.

The only rational thought that rose clearly enough to be put into words was that this could not possibly be normal.

Evil had sunk its claws into the temple. It was falling into darkness just as the Spirit Temple had eight months before.

She had to do something.

She had to act.

She didn't have nearly enough arrows.

Snapping out of her stunned surprise, she ducked behind a boulder, her breath coming fast and panicked. The grit from the ground stuck to her sweaty hands, and when she wiped her brow, she left behind a streak of dirt. In her fear, the grungy feeling against her skin, and the discomfort of the heat felt all the more oppressive, like she wanted to shudder out of her clothes and shudder out of the temple.

But feelings like that were unacceptable. She was a Sheikah. She was shadow and strength. And she had three arrows left.

She seized control of her breathing, and turned to peek over the boulder. The flock of kesse continued to grow, swirling and flaming and crying, and she watched it a moment, looking for weak points. Through the ever building heat haze, she made out the layout of the room, the islands of rock, the unfinished walls, the dark crevices, the bundles of bomb flowers.

Bomb flowers.

Her eyes dropped from the ceiling to the flock and back, her shoulders straightening as a plan took shape. A long bed of bomb flowers were planted directly above the first coil of the swarm. If she could hit one, it would set off the rest. They would ignite and take out the kesse. It was a long shot literally and figuratively, but she had to do it. She could do it. She was amazing at archery.

Knowing what she had to do calmed her, and she drew back an arrow to her ear and breathed along it, aiming across the cavern, through the heat distortion at the nearest bomb flower. It now seemed so small, so insignificant.

I am the wind and I fly true. I am the shadow, cutting through the air on the edge of a blade.

She let the arrow fly.

Maybe she saw the first bomb plant light, but then at such a distance it could have been sparks from the lava dancing before her eyes. Her shoulders tensed as the imagined the fuze flashing faster. And faster. And faster.

And then it exploded, a pop and a flash of light that looked so small and disappointing.

Then the second flower exploded. Then a third. And then she lost count as they fell in a cascade, the explosion building on itself in surges of smoke and fire, a boom rolling through the room, growing with every echo. The explosion started to fall, slow like a dying firework, and when it hit the swarm, the shrieking turned to a high pitched scream. The blast caught on the stream of bats, exploding anew, with a burst of light so bright she had to look away, with a wave of heat so strong it nearly knocked her off her feet. The keese were screaming, the solid stream of their horde flickering like the tensing of a muscle as their flocking instinct faltered with their panic. They stayed together long enough for the explosion to expand outward, traveling along the swarmin either direction. BoomBoomBoomBoomBoomBoomBoom.

The ceiling was falling. The lava surged and splashed as keese and rubble tumbled into the lake below. The walls shook, the chaos roaring so loudly that there were no single sounds, just the overwhelming cacophony.

Zelda had thrown herself to the ground behind her boulder, covering her head with her arms, listening to the world fall around her.

She stayed there until long after the room had stopped shaking. Until the lava stopped splattering against the ground beside her boulder and calmed back into its bubbling, hissing rest. The sounds faded to a few pain filled cries of injured keese, now so quiet after the explosion that she thought she might have gone deaf. The ringing in her ears only added to that suspicion. Her clothes were singed and her face and hands felt sunburnt.

She staggered to her feet and the room spun. She felt lighter, from dizziness and shock and heat stroke, from relief from the stifling darkness that had eased its hold on the temple.


	5. Chapter 5

**5. Silence**

She always imagined she could hear music. It echoed just beyond her hearing, and if only she could strain her ears a little more, if only she tilted her head ever so slightly, if only she moved closer to the source that she couldn't find, she would be able to listen. It was a whispered conversation the she desperately wanted to hear. Somewhere, some triumphant chorus was singing, but she couldn't find them, she couldn't get close, she couldn't be a part of that elusive joy.

Sometimes when her mind wandered enough, she could hear it. But if her attention snapped back to listen, it would vanish, leaving the temple so quiet she could hardly stand it.

The stillness pounded against her ears, the pressure its own sound.

The Temple of Time was not a pleasant place to be. Even as a child, before the fall of Hyrule, it would make the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. The air was so dry and cool and thin she found it hard to breathe—like it had always just finished raining under the marble roof. Power rested here, and even as a child it had called to her. It had warned her away. It had whispered of her destiny in the silence.

Now the walls had faded to a dim gray, like the building of clouds that threatened to drizzle rather than storm. The goddesses' faces, which once stared down at her so intently that she had to look away, were now vacant and blurred. They were sleeping in wait like the hero, or they had abandoned Zelda and her country.

The shadows stretched farther than they once did. They bathed the ceiling and crawled down the walls, creeping towards the stairs. Zelda didn't fear the shadows. She was one of them, part of them, and she wondered sometimes if the shadows grew because the sun's light had faded over the city, or if they grew from her presence.

Her visits to the temple were more frequent. They stretched longer and longer. She would crouch in the rafters in the shadows and listen to the silence.

There she would wait. That's what she said she was doing. She would wait for the hero to awaken. He would need a guide when he awoke, or at least Zelda told herself that, clinging to the hope that she could do something to bring all the tragedy to an end. It was a possessive need. This was her disaster, and she would fix it.

But then that was getting into the real reason she spent so much time in the temple. She came to feel the guilt. She came to torture herself.

She came to mourn. For her people and her country. For everything that was lost. She came to mourn for herself.

She came to rage. Rage against Link for taking so long to awaken, for letting people suffer while he slept. She raged that he had listened to her, that he followed her orders. She raged that her plan had failed so spectacularly and that she had been so stupid as to think herself clever. She raged that she couldn't guarantee it wouldn't happen again. She raged at the goddesses for letting this happen, for claiming she had wisdom and imbuing her with confidence, for only granting the hero the power to make things right and then sealing him away.

In the temple, she felt closer to the goddesses, so maybe they would hear her curse filled thoughts. She felt closer to the hero, so maybe her anger would reach him, would wake him.

She felt closer to herself: a creature of shadow doomed to live with regret, doomed to struggle to make things right when she could never atone for her trespasses. Here she could wrap herself in self pity, before she set her jaw, raised her chin and went back out into the dark world to fight with everything she had.

When she was lost in her own thoughts, she could almost hear music. She could almost feel hope.


	6. Chapter 6

**6. Scream**

"Sheeeeeiiiik!"

Zelda repressed a cringe at the high pitched scream, maintaining her usual air of detached, uncanny calm. She changed her stride and shifted her weight only enough to sidestep at the last second, dodging the flying Kokiri with an easy spin before continuing her stroll as if she had not been interrupted.

Fado huffed from where she'd sprawled against the ground after her manic leap. Her fairy had also overshot its target and shook itself with a jingle before circling Fado's hair, pulling at her pig tails to encourage her to stand. Fado squealled as if tickled, then hopped to her feet and jogged after Zelda.

The Kokiri had made a game of trying to surprise and catch the Sheikah. If one of them ever managed to tackle her (which would never happen) they would gain renown and adoration from the other Kokiri on levels hitherto unknown. They didn't really seem to mind how none of them ever succeeded; the challenge was what made it fun.

Also flinging themselves at her and throwing themselves out of trees to try to land on top of her. They thought that was fun too.

They had another game that they called "Sheikah," which was a bit like tag, except everyone would try to catch "the Sheikah", who would run and dodge and remain aloof and silent. "The Sheikah" lost whenever they were caught, or when they started giggling, or when they flailed too much in their running, at which point everyone would call foul and whine that they weren't doing it right. Then someone else would become "the Sheikah."

Fado clasped her hands behind her back and skipped along beside Zelda, biting her lower lip to hold back a giggle. Zelda found this posture suspicious, and kept her guard up in preparation for another lunge.

"You're back! We haven't seen you in ages." She held out the first syllable of "ages" and let her head loll back in exasperation. "Where have you been? What did you do? Did you fight more monsters? Did you? What was it like? Did it have big teeth?"

Fado used her fingers to mime toothy jaws that snapped and (for some reason) wiggled. Her fairy turned red, its wings folding to make it look slightly more vicious, its chime changing to a harsh, rude noise. The girl growled too and then sprung forward again. Zelda diverted her attack with a hand on the crown of the girl's head. With her hands at her mouth, she wouldn't have been able to break her fall if Zelda performed a full evasion. Fado spun from the momentum and laughed, throwing her arms out and spinning around twice more, her fairy spinning around her form at twice the speed, sprinkling them both with glitter. They both looked a bit dizzy, but collected themselves and hurried to catch up again.

"Sheeeeiiiiik," she whined.

"I have traveled many places since we last met," Zelda answered. "I have rooted out several malicious beings, but I doubt many of them would interest you." Sheik wasn't much of a story teller. Her escapades came off sounding dry and the Kokiri quickly lost interest and shifted to make up their own stories, which always involved Sheik kicking an overwhelming number of enemies. Then something would explode. Then several fairies would come to her aid. Then something else would explode.

"We have those big, snotty plants that bite again. They came back, but I don't know how they got there because they can't walk or anything. There must be a wizard that comes in the night and plants them! The Know-It-All brothers tried to hit one with a stick, but it pulled their stick away, snapped it in half, and then spit it at them!"

Zelda nearly paused. "Are they injured?"

Fado rolled her eyes. "Bill fell. When he was running away. He scraped himself up, and it looks all gross, but it's not that bad. He's just a weenie cry-cry. Are you going to get rid of the plant monsters?"

"Yes. That is why I'm here."

Fado cheered, then, as the village came into sight, sprinted ahead to scream at the rest of the Kokiri that "Sheik's gonna kill the monnnn-sterrrrrrs!"

The Kokiri popped their heads out of their houses, looking around and shouting questions. Zelda could see even the furthest Kokiri's face light up when they realized they had a visitor. By the time she'd made it to the middle of the village, the whole tribe had bounded up to natter questions at her and lead her towards the deku babas.

"Sheik!" "Where have you been?" "Can I see your knife?" "Sheik, I won the Sheikah game yesterday!" "No, he didn't. He's a liar!" "I fought the monster the—the other day and—and I got this gross scrape! Look!" "It nearly killed him!" "It nearly killed me!" "Sheik, if I cry a lot my eyes turn red too! Do you cry a lot? Are you very sad?" "I caught this bug and it's super weird!"

Zelda ignored them for the most part (only letting her eyes sweep over Bill's battle wound, which had already scabbed over.) The only other options were to get overwhelmed by their relentless questions, or to answer each one in turn, probably leaving someone out on accident and thus making them cry, while dragging the whole lot of them as they clung to her arms and legs. If you gave the Kokiri an inch, they'd walk all over you. If she agreed to look at one weird bug, she'd also end up looking at some glowing mushrooms, funny smelling berries, and a rock that looked like a duck. If she soothed one sobbing child, they would all start to cry, and they would shove each other to try to see how many of them could fit in her lap for a hug.

The Kokiri didn't mind her silence in the slightest. What little information she'd give them would keep them occupied for days.

She was glad to see that they weren't afraid to come out of their homes. Her last visit, she'd had to defeat a troop of moblins that had camped next to the stream that ran through town. The village was so quiet after the clash of violence and screams and metal on rusted metal. Zelda stood, splattered in black blood, trying to control her breathing so she could listen, trying to slow her pulse that pounded in her ears. The village of children had never been so silent.

She'd feared the worst.

By some miracle, they were all fine. They'd barricaded their doors and hidden under their beds and refused to come out even when Zelda knocked and told them it was safe.

At a loss, Zelda had taken a seat on a stump and pulled out her harp to pass the time and help her think. She played absently, shifting from song to song, thinking on how to lure the Kokiri from their shelters.

And then she looked up, and there was Fado, standing in front of her and looking ashen. Zelda put down her harp, and the girl was in her arms, wailing and screaming and leaving snot on her shoulder. When Fado calmed, Zelda played more, holding the harp at an awkward angle as Fado refused to move away. The music called to more of the Kokiri and soon she was the center of a mass of tears and sniffles and hugging, skinny arms.

All the touching made her uncomfortable, but they were so distraught that she sucked it up, rubbing circles between their shoulder blades, brushing the less bloody of her hands through their dirty hair, telling them that the monsters were gone and the children had done an excellent job defending themselves.

Now smiling and bouncing, they led her down the narrow path towards the remains of the Great Deku Tree. Since its death, the tree was eerie, smelling of rot and despair. Instead of protecting the forest, radiating light and safety as it once did, it was now the spawning ground of dark things.

Zelda felt an internal shiver.

A way down the path, the Kokiri stopped, falling back, but peering forward at the tangle of sharp leaves like a dandelion's, tinted purple at the edges. Zelda narrowed her eyes and stepped forward, giving herself room from the crowd of Kokiri.

Two steps and the monster burst out of its leafy nest, snapping rows of sharp fangs and spitting long strands of drool. The Kokiri gasped. Zelda drew a knife.

The beast lunged, and she swiped, slicing through the fleshy bulb from one side of its mouth to the other, her forearm passing through its teeth before it could snap. Its rancid breath wafted against her face. The colors of the flower like nothing seen on something living.

Sliced cleanly in half, it flopped to the ground in two sections. The top half flew down the path, while the bottom half was snagged in place, still connected to the stiff stem.

The Kokiri cheered.

Without acknowledging their applause, Zelda switched knives and sawed through the stem. The monster's forked tongue lolled over the bottom row of teeth, twitching with her sawing and with the continued spark of nerve endings. She tossed the lower half of the bulb away and it collapsed on the ground like it had rotted much faster than natural, like all the stiffness of the flower had drained away.

She took a firm hold on the stump of stem with her fist, and yanked the whole thing out of the ground. She hauled out roots and fibers, clenching her jaw and ripping it free. She did not topple over when it flew loose, but only because she wouldn't allow herself to over balance in front of the Kokiri.

She held the mess up to inspect it (and maybe to show it off a little bit.) Clumps of dark, moist dirt dropped free of the tangle to explode with soft fwoops on the ground. The roots stayed still for a moment, then shivered. Then, slowly, they stretched like fingers spreading wide, like a cat waking from a nap. Then they writhed, tentacles seeking out the shelter of the ground once more.

The Kokiri screamed in disgust and delight, clutching each other and leaning in to get a better look.

"Ewwwwww!"

Zelda shook some more of the dirt off, dazing the roots for a moment. Then with a twitch of the fingers on her free hand, she set the roots on fire.

The Kokiri screamed again this time in surprise and fear, but they didn't run, staying instead to watch the roots burn.

Zelda dropped it before she could burn her hand. It disintegrated before it hit the ground, the ash landing with another soft fwoop.

Zelda brushed the dirt off her hands and turned to the children. "Do not attempt to destroy a deku baba on your own," she said.

She had a feeling their latest game would involve lighting things on fire.

But the Kokiri were too excited to give her warning much thought. "Do the next one, Sheik!" "Yeah, do it again!" "The next one!" "There are five of them!"


End file.
